Quincey’s steer wins grand champion at Florida State Fair

By Carrie A. Mizell

Katie Quincey’s face lit up last week as her Charolais Cross steer was selected grand champion at the Florida State Fair in Tampa.
Quincey was one of 12 Trenton FFA members to enter steers in the Steer Futurity Show at the state fair. After their steers won each of their classes, Erin Jones, Lee Deen, and Quincey were called back to the grand championship ring, where Quincey’s steer was ultimately declared the winner.

Katie Quincey shows off her grand champion steer moments after winning at the Florida State Fair.
Katie is shown with her family, Steven, Kimberly and Charlee Hines. Katie’s steer won
unanimously as all three judges voted it grand champion.

According to Heather Rucker, Trenton FFA advisor, Trenton had three out of the seven steers in the grand champion pen.
While 2010 marked Quincey’s first year showing a steer at the Florida State Fair, she cannot be considered a rookie, since she has shown Angus cows at the Tampa fair for the last six years.
The grand champion steer was produced by Hal and Debbie Phillips of Morriston. It weighed in at 1,174 pounds.
Quincey was one of 12 Trenton FFA members to enter steers in the Steer Futurity Show at the state fair. Other Trenton FFA members who competed were Asheton Sanchez, whose steer did not make the weight, Hunter Parrish, Lee Deen, Danyal Langford, Kaylee Crawford, Taylor Langford, and Racheal Harrison, all from the senior chapter. Junior chapter members who competed were: Brooks Parrish, Erin Jones, Lyndsay Boland and Kacee Langford.
Unlike the Suwannee River Fair’s steer show, students must submit an application with entry fee in June to participate in the Florida State Fair. The first 75 to enter are then selected to come in August and attend a day long seminar on animal health, nutrition and feeding. That afternoon each student is allowed to select the calf they will bring home through a lottery process. All of the cows are from Florida producers. Students then purchase their calves and take them home to feed and take care of for approximately 185 days.
In the mean time, students have to complete a series of tasks including writing a thank you letter to the producer, obtaining a State of Florida Ethics Certificate, completing two pre-fair talks to the community on the Futurity program, completing a record book and recruiting new participants.
After a lot of hard work the students took their steers back to Tampa last week where they entered their animals in the show, by weight gain. Students also presented a demonstration on an assigned animal topic, prepared a poster to be displayed on the assigned topic, took a written test on the assigned topic, competed in a skill-a-thon related to the assigned topic and finally, took a record book management written test with math components.
All of these efforts were completed prior to students’ showing their animals in showmanship and the actual show.
Points were earned for each activity and students were then paid per point and then a base price per pound for the animal.
Trenton FFA members also performed well in the showmanship competition. Erin Jones won first place in intermediate showmanship, while Brooks Parrish placed second and Kacee Langford came in third.
In the senior showmanship contest, Katie Quincey finished fourth place.